Michael Angelo Covino cowrites, directs, and costars in the rom com Splitsville, out this weekend in limited form and widely on September 5th from distributor Neon. It premiered at Cannes back in May. Dakota Johnson headlines along with her filmmaker, Adria Arjona, Kyle Marvin, Nicholas Braun, David Castaneda, O-T Fagbenie, and Charlie Gillespie.
Johnson’s second genre exercise this season (Materialists being the other), Splitsville is drawing mostly positive critical reaction. Rotten Tomatoes is 86% with Metacritic at 75. I do think Golden Globe attention in Best Musical/Comedy is at least a possibility, but the Academy is unlikely to consider it. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Arriving in wide release exactly 49 years to the day from the event it showcases, Saturday Night expands nationwide on October 11th. From Jason Reitman, the dramedy recounts the 90 minutes leading up to the premiere of Saturday Night Live. Gabriel LaBelle stars as Lorne Michaels with a large supporting cast including Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith (getting a lot of solid buzz as Chevy Chase), Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun (pulling double duty as Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson), Cooper Hoffman, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, J.K. Simmons, and Jon Batiste (who also provides the score).
The behind the scenes showbiz tale first premiered at Telluride to mostly favorable reaction. The RT score is 80% with 63 on Metacritic. This could contend for one of the ten slots in Best Picture at the Academy Awards, but it’s not a slam dunk nominee.
Opening just as SNL kicks off its 50th season certainly helps exposure. It debuted in five venues on September 27th in New York and L.A. to a robust $53k per screen average (second best this year after Kinds of Kindness). Saturday Night expands slightly on October 4th before the 2000 screen rollout on the 49th anniversary.
This was rightly anticipated to start out well on the coasts. I’m unconvinced general audiences will make this a sizable hit even with the (not exactly loud) awards chatter and decades long familiarity with the source material. I’m not sure this gets to $10 million and I’m putting it under.
Saturday Night opening weekend prediction: $7.8 million
Jason Reitman had a one-two punch of consecutive Best Picture nominees with Juno and Up in the Air in 2007 and 2009. Some follow-ups generated solid reviews (Young Adult, Tully) while others (Labor Day, The Front Runner) drew more mixed reactions. None have received significant awards buzz in the past decade and a half. Will that change with Saturday Night?
The Sony Pictures dramedy is slated for release on October 11th which is the 49th anniversary of the iconic sketch show it celebrates. This recounts the chaotic moments leading up to the premiere of Saturday Night Live. Gabriel LaBelle (who essentially played young Steven Spielberg in 2022’s The Fabelmans) is 30-year-old Lorne Michaels. The extensive supporting cast (some playing 1975 legends with others as future legends) includes Cooper Hoffman, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun (as Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson), Andrew Barth Feldman, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, J.K. Simmons, and Jon Batiste.
Having just played Telluride and hitting Toronto shortly, early word-of-mouth is primarily on the fresh side. There are some high profile reviews of the thumbs down variety. I would say Saturday Night stands a shot at a Best Picture nomination, but it is a coin flip at the moment as we await how competitors pan out. Down ballot categories like Costume Design and (especially) Film Editing could occur especially if it sneaks into BP.
As for the cast, LaBelle is getting quality ink. Yet some of the strongest notices are going to Sennott as writer Rosie Schuster and Smith as Chevy Chase. I’m skeptical any of the performers break into their respective categories though the SAG Awards could certainly nominate the cast in their Ensemble race. Speaking of other shows, the Golden Globes could put it up for Musical/Comedy assuming Sony campaigns for it there and LaBelle could make the Actor (Musical/Comedy) quintet.
At the Academy Awards, there is almost always a picture or two that is up solely for its screenplay. This is a distinct possibility with Saturday Night and its original screenplay from Reitman and Gil Kenan. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
After starring in last year’s Oscar winning Best Picture CODA, Emilia Jones is back onscreen in two features playing at the Sundance Film Festival. One is Fairyland which I’ll get to in my prediction posts shortly. The other is thriller Cat Person from director Susanna Fogel (who cowrote 2019’s acclaimed coming-of-age dramedy Booksmart).
Based on a short story that generated lots of attention after it was published in The New Yorker, Jones plays a college student in a dangerous online romance with an older man (Nicholas Braun from Succession). Costars include Geraldine Viswanathan, Hope Davis, Michael Gandolfini, Liza Koshy, and Isabella Rossellini.
Early reviews are of the mixed variety with a current 75% rating based on the small sampling via Rotten Tomatoes. This could generate some buzz with audiences after a distributor picks it up and that should occur imminently. I doubt it will follow suit with awards chatter. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Janicza Bravo’s Zola (or @zola) is certainly a film of its time. The biographical dramedy is based on a series of Tweets that went viral and led to a Rolling Stone article. Taylour Paige is the title character – a part-time stripper whose adventures in Tampa are chronicled here. Costars include Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, Colman Domingo, Ar’iel Stachel, and Ts Madison.
Released Wednesday on approximately 1400 screens, Zola is picking up some buzz following its well-regarded screening at Sundance in January. It should make its meager $3 million budget back in its first few days of release. Critics have taken notice too and it sports an 88% Rotten Tomatoes rating. As a side note – this was originally slated for James Franco to direct before his personal scandals canceled that possibility.
Distributor A24 could mount an awards campaign. Paige turned some heads late last year in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and is being heralded with this headlining showcase. Zola could also be the first Adapted Screenplay contender originated from the omnipresent social media platform.
My guess is that the subject matter may be a tad too left field for the Academy, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some critical branches have this on their radar screen at the end of the year. My Oscar Watch posts will continue…
How to Be Single is about four single gals finding their way in the Big Apple and if that sounds like “Sex and the City”, you wouldn’t be wrong. There’s Alice (Dakota Johnson), our central Carrie character. Robin (Rebel Wilson) is the inappropriate Samantha like friend. Lucy (Alison Brie) is the Charlotte-ish hopeless romantic who’s constantly trolling dating sites for true love. And Meg (Leslie Mann) is the career woman (and Alice’s older sister) whose got it together, but realizes she needs a baby. Kind of like Miranda.
Alice is just embarking on her first dip into the single pool when she breaks up with her longtime boyfriend and sees what NYC has to offer. It includes a bartender (Anders Holm) that has the playa life down cold and a sweet widower and dad (Damon Wayans Jr.) still getting over his wife’s death. There’s also the ex-flame (Nicholas Braun) who keeps turning up. Truth be told, none of these relationships are terribly interesting or well-written and Dakota Johnson still seems to be struggling to infuse much personality into her performances. This is also a problem that plagued Fifty Shades of Grey, which was far more dreadful than this.
If anything, How to Be Single is just kind of dull and conventional. It sold itself as a raunch fest, but it’s not. My favorite moments involved Mann and her earnest younger boyfriend (a funny Jake Lacy), yet the script never succeeds in juggling its separate plot lines. More of those characters might have worked. Maybe. The screenwriters might have figured out a way to make them tiresome, too.
All My Life... I Wanted To Be A Blogster 